Famous tenor Andrea Bocelli has made a video in which he says:

A young pregnant wife had been hospitalised for a simple attack of appendicitis . . . when the treatments ended the doctors suggested that she abort the child . . . because the baby would be born with some disability. But the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born.

That woman was my mother, and I was the child. Maybe I’m partisan, but I can say that it was the right choice.

I hope this could encourage many mothers who sometimes find themselves in difficult situations in those moments when life is complicated but want to save the life of their baby.

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Andrea Bocelli was born in 1958. At his birth, doctors diagnosed him as having congenital glaucoma, and by age 12 he was completely blind.

Despite this, Bocelli’s passion for music led to international musical fame, including eight operas and 70 million album sales.  

For years Bocelli was an agnostic, but returned to the Catholic Faith in 1994, partly due to reading the works of Leo Tolstoy which convinced him that life is not random chance, but has a purpose.

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Here are a couple of quotes from Tolstoy:

God alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in time, space and matter. The more God’s manifestation in man (life) unites with the manifestations (lives) of other beings, the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is accomplished through love.  (from: Tolstoy’s Diary)

 Martin’s soul grew glad. He crossed himself, put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened, and at the top of the page he read: “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” And at the bottom of the page he read: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me”.  (Matthew’s gospel, chapter 28). And Martin understood that his dream had come true, and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.  (from: “Where Love Is, God Is“)